


Before Dawn

by rosekay



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-20
Updated: 2006-07-20
Packaged: 2017-11-07 10:15:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/429892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosekay/pseuds/rosekay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is almost too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to LJ in 2006.

The pattern of the bindings is almost beautiful. The rope, thin, black, is stark against the softness of skin that's unfamiliar and pale, looking starved for sunlight under the smears of blood, old and new. 

There's a knot, intricately tied, that rests tight over the fluttering hollow of Dean's throat. He can see where it winds, almost languid, around the rest of Dean's neck, another knot. 

He's facing his son now, but he knows how it drops down over the dip of his spine to trap his arms behind him, snaking from the elbows down, forearm to forearm, wrist to wrist, brutally tight in an iron straight line, until it slacks to loop around his limp fingers like rings. 

There's a parallel drop over Dean's chest, cutting diagonally down from collarbone to hip over bare skin, the eye drawn away from any scars by the angry, dark line of the rope. A third knot at the sharp angle of the hip, then the rope slides under and over the spread thigh like ivy, twining down the bent knee, binding muscle and bone to the chair leg behind it.

A fourth knot at the knob of the ankle, and the same odd looping of the toes. The line that climbs up the other leg, over knee, thigh, hip until it crosses the chest in the opposite direction, that one trails from the dangling thread that ties the hands. 

As far as John can tell, the whole thing is one single rope, a sort of ruthless economy in its form, and something deeper in the odd ritual of it. 

The cross over Dean's chest is a little off center. 

It frames his heart. 

"Hold still," he says, quiet, even though the summoner is dead, warm blood cooling in the room over. 

Dean doesn't quite manage it. No surprise. He's been here for days, and probably bound for most of it. There's blood pooling at the foot of the chair in slow trickles, the layer of fresh copper over deeper, older stains on the floor. It's so thick in the air he can taste the metal over his tongue. 

He searches for wounds, hands tipping Dean's head, frighteningly limp, up as far as it'll go, patting down his arms, legs, hands almost flinching at the feel of the blood slick under his palms. There's nothing. 

Unless...

John swallows, stares at the eerily precise way in which the thing, so thin and fragile looking, wraps around Dean's limbs, crossing his chest, collaring his throat, the sharp progression of it down his arms and legs, kissing the skin like tattoos. Slowly, heart rolling over, he tries shifting it away from the skin. It's difficult, because of the tightness or something else, he doesn't know, but he only needs a tiny movement to confirm his suspicions. 

Underneath the line of the rope, and the inflamed skin around it, is a single, shallow cut that disappears again where the rope touches skin. 

Something churning in his gut, he checks other places, the thigh, the arms, the throat. All the same - precise shallow incisions that are still sluggishly leaking blood. The rope just barely hides all of them, digging into the wounds even as they bind. 

"Dean," he says, hand automatically going to the damp hair, "Dean." 

His boy's stripped down to nothing but his boxers, even though the room's freezing. John's eyes follow the goosebumps rising along arms, thighs, the tremors that aren't far behind. 

"Come on, kiddo," he says, voice almost cracking. He hasn't called Dean that since years before Sam left, but Dean looks up when he says it, eyes casting at him almost blindly. His lips are moving, but he's silent. 

John saw a lot of things in Vietnam. The lush beauty of the jungles had rushed at them, looking down from the planes, and only when they were caught in its embrace did they realize what was really there. 

He remembers less in narrative than singular, isolated things - cigarettes sucessfully bartered for his own, solo birthday celebration, crouched in the familiar stink of the mud, rain misting his helmet and damping the filter. The wide-boned, wide-eyed face of some Vietcong kid, _poor fucker_ and _fucking gook_ echoing in his head as he looked coolly down the barrel of his rifle, hands tense and doing what they needed to do. The chalky white flakes of spinal cord and blood in his face when a buddy's head was near blown off. 

And John, well John knows the look of a man who's had too much, let that jungle eat him alive until he was either blank or shaking. He's watched pale faces, bruised expressions, hands that were steady and eyes that were not. Everyone knew what it meant, didn't need to say it out loud - weren't long before the fucker was dead. 

Yeah, John saw a lot of things in Vietnam. 

He just never thought he'd see that look on his son. 

The knots are neat, tight and useless to undo, and the rope is slick and wiry under his knife. The blade moves dangerously close to skin a couple times, but Dean doesn't even flinch, though he's still shaking, just looks straight ahead. John stares down blindly at the thing in his hand, the gleam of metal on the serrated edge. 

He remembers teaching Dean to shoot, telling him not to flinch, not to expect it. Just stroke the trigger gently, he'd said, don't tense for it. 

Should almost be a surprise, Dean. 

He wonders how many surprises Dean's walked into over the years, never hesitating, never looking back, wonders what kind got him here. 

It's slow work, but when the last rope falls away, Dean sort of just falls forward bonelessly, even though the blood must rushing back in pinpricks. He goes straight for the crook of John's shoulder just like he used to when John scooped him into the air. 

The soft, damp hair pressed against his cheek is familiar, and the shape of the face crushed against him so desperately. His boy, his firstborn, and for a moment, nothing's changed. 

John draws his arms around Dean's hunched back slowly, breath stirring his hair. His head feels empty, his heart only slowing it's hectic pace now. 

He wishes he hadn't been so quick to kill the summoner, wishes he'd used something other than a gun. 

"Come on," he whispers, "let's get you cleaned up." 

Dean doesn't respond for a second, usually the first sign that something's wrong, then John feels him start to shuffle his limbs in his grasp. They half rise together, but Dean's legs are coltish and useless beneath him, tied too long or bled too much to really support his weight. He doesn't look at John at all, but the shape of his jaw suddenly seems terribly young. 

When he stumbles again, John catches him, with half a mind to just hoist him up in his arms like the very first time, but Dean's strong, so he just lays a hand over the sharp rise of the shoulder blade, the other curling around the blood smeared abdomen. 

John gives him his jacket, still loose over Dean's shoulders, when he wrestles him into the Impala. They drive back to the motel in silence. Dean finally passes out halfway there, and John almost takes a turn toward the hospital, but stops himself. 

He can handle it. They can handle it. 

Sometimes he just wishes Sam were here.


End file.
